


Caveat

by greendragon_templar



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 19th Century England, Gen, Gilbert is a cemetery goblin, HWD Secret Spectres Event, Human AU, Or bodysnatching rather, Revenge is Sweet, Vampires, graverobbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:39:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greendragon_templar/pseuds/greendragon_templar
Summary: Somehow, he's become a sort of guardian angel, of his own accord.





	Caveat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MudaMuda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MudaMuda/gifts).



> I wrote this in place of another of our entrants who unfortunately had to pull out, for the HWD Secret Spectres Event! This is for Muda on discord and @a-whole-lasagna on tumblr.

Gilbert never thought being dead could be so _productive_.

He’d almost venture to say he’s achieved more while dead than alive. It helps that he’s had over a hundred years tacked on to his lifespan already, and he still _appears_ to be living, for the most part. There’s been plenty with which to fill the hours: learning new hobbies and relearning old ones (the advent and growing usefulness of the firearm still hasn’t put him off taking his old rapier for a spin), trial-and-erroring his way through the best methods of finding and consuming fresh blood without killing his victims in the process, how to eavesdrop efficiently when he can’t cross thresholds, how to occupy his Sundays now that the mere sight of a church seems to burn through his eyelids, and of course, how to do everything as efficiently as possible within the darkest hours of the day.

Some of his most rewarding work has been a recent development. Ludwig was buried in England; Gilbert has scarcely left the country since. He considers the cemetery his own; Ludwig agreed, on his deathbed, to be interred there so that his brother could comfortably visit for the rest of eternity, over the inconvenience of a graveyard. And now the resurrectionists are afoot. Ludwig’s not in any danger, not when he’s been at rest for over half a century, but others are. And any affront to the cemetery is an affront to Gilbert’s conscience, as well as his promises.

(Somehow, he’s become a sort of _guardian angel_ , of his own accord).

He’s written on it, when he’s felt like it: the divisions between forgivable and unforgivable crimes. Within the first category he places his own, those of necessity. Meddling with corpses is nothing like it.

Gilbert’s been using his time to become well-acquainted with the biggest offenders of the modern age – maybe not in the public eye, or in the newspapers, but certainly in his own.

He knows them like the back of his hand: two criminals in arms, two of the most ill-suited contributors to the profession imaginable.

He knows Roderich, of course. Immaculately groomed and excruciatingly dysfunctional, he somehow became a qualified medical professional somewhere along the sad limp from being abandoned by his wife (rumours attest it was for another woman, no less), to hiring someone other than himself to trudge into burial grounds and air the rotting cadavers, often within hours of the priest’s blessings. When Gilbert’s not slinking about after dusk, making mental notes of every conversation he hears, sometimes shapeshifting to hear every word Roderich exchanges, loathing him more with every passing second as he compares one physician to another (his _brother_ cleaned the instruments better than this, _he_ stayed up as late as necessary—), Gilbert reluctantly admires his contribution, and dedication, to medical advancement. But this is far from the best, or most _ethical_ , way to go about it.

He hears the surgeon’s voice in his head, sometimes, and his skin crawls.

(“This is all I’ve got left, now. What’s the law to science? I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to complete a painting just because the government told me I couldn’t use blue paint, or stop writing music because they outlawed the treble clef! My wife—my wife used to say some rules are meant to be broken.”)

Francis is the other part of the equation, the other half of the picture. Beautiful, miserable, resentful. Easy enough to assume he wouldn’t be caught _dead_ standing in someone else’s grave. From what Gilbert’s seen, he spends more than half his time having grandiose arguments with a man he seems to hate. He’s broke, moreover – squandered the inheritance under his mother’s will. He’s fallen on hard times, and this job is his version of complete and utter desperation – worse than the workhouse. Never in the history of body-snatching has there existed anyone less inclined to it than Francis. He cringes at the sight of flesh and uses a handkerchief to dab the pus from his hands. He keeps posies in his waistcoat pocket like some bizarre mockery of a plague doctor.

(“You’re damn lucky to have me at your side! There are not many men who would so lower themselves as to dabble in this line of work. Consider yourself blessed. You would struggle to find yourself a more patient employee!”)

And these poor souls have set their sights on Gilbert’s cemetery, his _haunt_. He’d sooner have a stake driven through his heart than condone what’s about to unfold and see the unsanctified ground _defiled_. Ludwig’d never forgive it.

Gilbert has a strategy, concocted through his hours of meticulous study and observation. He knows almost _too_ much. He knows their plans, their processes, their approach, Francis’ unhappy acquiescence and Roderich’s insistence. This will be their final crime, their final act on this ground.

It all ends here.

\--

There’s nothing left to tempt Gilbert in the cemetery, even if he was to go plundering the very space he’s sworn to guard. The blood’s no good here. There are better places to feed.

He digs a fresh grave not too far from an old oak tree, only a few hours before Francis the resurrectionist is set to make an appearance. He’s hauled out the coffin he keeps specifically for the purpose and lodged it a little over a metre down (he’s a lot stronger than he used to be; nowadays, he can do it almost soundlessly). Then he shuts himself in, and everything else is down to the boy he enlisted from a neighbouring village to fill the hole in at the designated time, with fake assurances that the coffin in which he now lies contains the remains of some wretched relative whose service he could not otherwise afford. Everything is in order.

He waits until he’s heard the last, almost inaudible shower of dirt smattering over the grave from up on the surface and then, the ensuing silence. He’d already have suffocated if he had any more life to give, and almost every possible noise has been muted. He may as well be the only person on earth – if he can still call himself that, that is. Gilbert attempts to sleep, for at least a short while, but quickly grows tired of it; he counts in his head, then tries to recite textbook passages from memory, and contemplates fighting manoeuvres he wants to practise later. Contemplating the task before him – not the first of this nature – there’s the familiar combination of trepidation and excitement in his gut. Is this what pleasure-seeking is? If so, he never realised he’d have to turn into the living dead to experience it.

All that’s left to do is wait - and he’s not kept waiting long.

Gilbert’s woken from his doze in the pitch-black to the unmistakeable, hollow sound of dirt being shovelled away and tossed above his head, like hands plunged through wet sand, and it forces him to a complete state of wariness. Francis has done one thing right in choosing a wooden shovel over a metal one, but everything else is remarkably careless (and ultimately, to Gilbert’s benefit); he’s picked the most freshly-turned dirt in the cemetery, but rather than begin by Gilbert’s head, and slowly work his way in, to pry off the lid and drag out the corpse, he’s begun his digging from a position parallel to Gilbert’s torso. The buried man stifles a laugh, moving a hand over his collarbone.

As the dirt is removed, more and more reaches Gilbert’s ears: disgruntled, barely even _hushed_ stretches of French cursing, coupled with the occasional, blatant exclamation, more than enough to alert a watchman if the cemetery had one (one who was _paid_ , anyway; Gilbert thinks he does perfectly well as it is). The digging’s being done hastily, inconsiderately, with little regard to the concept that it could be considered an _art_. At the same time, it’s as if the moonlight is growing stronger, growing sharper, penetrating between the cracks of the coffin as Francis digs, illuminating the resurrectionist’s sins from on high. There’s something artificial there, too – a lamp?

 _How did that doctor_ find _him?_ ponders Gilbert, for the thousandth time.

When he finally does get to it, Gilbert can hear him scraping away at the coffin lid, like a rat behind a thin wooden wall, but since Gilbert closed _himself_ in, he doesn’t have to try all that hard to get in, as he would with anything better fastened. There is a great deal of sighing and rummaging, but it doesn’t last long.

They’re face-to-face in half a minute, and Gilbert doesn’t even have to _rise_. His hiss, bubbling from behind bared fangs, cascades into the most unequivocally hostile screech he can muster.

And Francis crumples like a sheet of gold under the blacksmith’s hammer.

Laughing, Gilbert heaves Francis’ body away and off his own chest before he can clamber out to the surface from his shallow grave. It does cross his mind to bury Francis in his place, but he thinks better of it; Ludwig wouldn’t like it. No reservations exist in his own mind.

He makes two trips back for both Francis and the coffin.

There’s a grin on his face the whole time; not even the physical exertion can try him. The coffin is left at the cemetery gate for collection come morning, and the hole’s left unfilled, to give the impression of a waiting plot. There’ll be no more trouble tonight - not here.

Francis, on the other hand, is propped up with little ceremony against the fence some distance away, lips parted, arms coated in filth, and thoroughly dishevelled. Gilbert decides to make things worse for him in the morning by taking the opportunity to feed, latching himself to Francis’ neck but leaving him otherwise intact. The only thing he’ll mind will be the splatters of blood on his clothes. A few pinpricks in the flesh can be concealed more easily than _that,_ and Gilbert has the feeling that the ruination of a perfectly good cravat is almost a worse transgression.

The last thing on Gilbert’s agenda is giving the resurrectionist one final, dismissive kick, and plucking the flowers from his victim’s waistcoat. He’s vanished within the hour, intangible as a spirit.

When Francis wakes in the morning, there are holes in his neck, and his pocketful of flowers decorate Ludwig Beilschmidt’s grave.

 


End file.
